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Friday, August 24, 2018

Robotic Bees Can Replace Honey Bees In The Near Future

Recently Japanese cybernetics experts invented drones that can emulate the functions of bees in pollination. The prototype has successfully pollinated Japanese lilies in an experiment.

Honey bees are threatened by several environmental factors. The use of pesticides and the alarming climate change finally took its toll in the population of honeybees. The decline of the population of several species of honey bees alarmed the scientific community. Before it's too late Japanese scientists built prototypes that can potentially replace the natural pollinators.

The team led by Eijiro Miyako constructed and tested the artificial pollinator. They are disturbed by the news of bee decline of neighboring countries. Chinese heavy industrial projects severely affected the ecosystem where the honey bees thrive. Chinese farmers dealt with the problem of the absence of bees by manually pollinating their orchards or crops. Japanese scientists thought that it should not be too late to save the environment after the bee decline.

But many critics pointed out that drone pollinators are very impractical for now. The bulky and unwieldy prototype can damage leaves and harm real honey bees and the cost of mass production of these drone pollinators would be high. The estimated cost of these pollinators ranges from $100-$250. For now, let's protect the environment and save the bees.